Jason Thompson

Ohhhhh Brad Stevens. You look like you’re 12 and coach like you’re… 12. But at least, unlike Larry Drew, his inconsistencies have been pretty centralized to the… center. I need to work on expanding my vocab! First there was the Vitor Faverani early (albeit very brief) breakout, then Kelly Olynyk got some starts, followed by a really nice run from Jared Sullinger. I at first brushed him off, but then had Yahoo highlights for a Celtics game and was really impressed. I liked how he saw the floor, played hard, a nice-looking shot, and just overall looked like a guy that would be a must-own. Then after some flagrant fouls and rough-n-tough play racking up the personals, Stevens threw him to the bench. From December 22nd to January 8th he was brutal and I had to jump ship as well. And of course right after that happens, he goes for 21/11 and 14/10 over the weekend, with a pair of treys in both. The first comment on Friday was asking about dropping Sullinger and I said “12 team with a solid squad I might hold, but if I had injuries or needed production now, he’s droppable. I think he is bad a few weeks, but gets back into the starting lineup.” That’s me quoting me! My timetable was off, turned out he was done being bad/underplayed, but I still had some faith. I think he needs to be owned in most leagues with double-double upside, a perimeter game, and I think the assists come back (only 1 in the past 4, but was at 2.3 dimes a game in December). Let’s all just hope Stevens doesn’t keep sullying fantasy hoops for us… Here’s what else I saw over the weekend (through tears of sadness after the refs rigged the 49ers a playoff win) in fantasy basketball:

That’s right, it’s looking like that draft wasn’t so bad after all, what with a healed and dazzling John Wall; the Doug Collins-less, unleashed Evan Turner; a settled-in DeMarcus Cousins; Boards-N-Blocks favorite Greg Monroe; my NBA BFF Paul George; and now Derrick Favors, who – here we go again – appears he has achieved Breakout Status.

Had a 21-13-3 against Denver, a 12-12-2 but with 5 steals (!) vs. the Pelicans, a monster 20-18-3 against the Spurs and then had a more typical Favors effort with a 17-7-1 in Oakland.

Some say this means he’s out of the buy-low window now. But that means, at least to me, he’s in the sell high. I need to see consistent beastly efforts, or a 20-point, 20-board game (hell Nikola Vucevic does this in his sleep), and until then I’ll keep saying to trade him whenever he gets hot.

The period of free agency continues to shape the fantasy basketball-scape with fresh meat on terrible teams and players signing with contenders to be relegated to bench duty. With baseball in full swing and the NFL getting half of the ESPN air time no matter what time of year it is, a lot of NBA moves have been made under the radar. Look for every division to get a team-by-team breakdown and some early fantasy thoughts on the new faces in new places:

Gotta love Colorado. All the hippies, all the ganja. I went to Denver last year (not for that) and really enjoyed the city and caught a few Rockies games. That town loves their sports teams. Have you ever watched sports high? It’s awwwwwwesome. Well then again, I guess everything you like is intensified in aurae of sweeeeeet. And then if your team loses, you can just laugh it off like Brad Pitt in True Romance.

Fantasy wise, the Nuggets feature tons of options, but there enlies a bit of a conundrum as there are some hit and miss nights. I’m a big Corey Brewer fan, but he has some down nights, I really like Danilo Gallinari as a big 3 but he goes cold some nights (went 4-17 last night), and Kosta Koufos, who is criminally underrated and unmentioned on that team, played only 16 minutes yesterday. It really is a revolving door with a lot of those guys – Andre Miller almost hit a triple-double last night while Wilson Chandler only scored 9 following up 35 two games ago. It’s kinda like a fantasy wheel of fortune. You get jackpots and a trip to Tahiti with Tehol (although I would prefer Bankrupt there), or you have Lose A Turn or Bankrupt. See if you can figure this one out. _ _ R_ _ _ _ _ R _ U_ _ _ INC_ N _ I _ _ _ _ _ R_ _ _ _ _ _I _ _ _. Girlie Porn User Incontinence Rigamortis? Close! It’s George Karl Uses Inconsistent Rotations. OK, I officially never want to come a Wheel Of Fortune puzzle maker.

It’s the last week of the regular season, which means roughly 40-50% of fantasy basketball will be over for the owners who didn’t make the playoffs. But don’t worry! You don’t have to wait until fantasy drafts next October to get back to your fantasy winning days. Our friends at DraftKings run huge $ daily fantasy contests, and have got some of their biggest payouts yet. Play today in their $150,000 Bank Shot and for an entry fee of only $200, you could win $50,000! Payouts will go to the top 100 players, and the prize pool would make John Dillinger proud. Or you can always hop in the $15,000 Big Wednesday for an entry fee of only $27 and win $3 G’s! Now let me try and help you win some money with some good value picks for tonight:

I’m starting to get really frustrated with those AT&T kid commercials where this douche asks four or five kids random crap, like “what’s better less or more?” or “would you rather be faster or slower?” In one of em he cuts the kid off who just wants to prove she can be funny like the convulsing three-year old too! He’s probably too buys doing blow with AT&T execs to have empathy. However, the way those kids act isn’t too dissimilar to how I would see NBA stars act in team meetings. Like imagine the same guy sitting with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook ans asking, “what’s better, scoring more or less points?” “MOOORRREEEE!!!” in unison. Then Westbrook is like, “if you score more points you have more chance of being on Sportscenter and people will like you more and clown you less for singing along to Ke$ha in pre-game.” Clowned anyway! Good thing Westbrook is having an incredible season, including beating up the Lakers last night to the beat of his drum (if there’s a more apropos lyric from Ke$ha hell if I would know it) with a line of 15-29 FG 37 Pts 10 Rebs 5 Asts and 2 Stls. On top of that, only two turnovers. Even Kobe Bryant was givin’ props. If there was a Facebook throw down of NBA players claiming to be elite, this would be a good time for Westbrook to chime in. Let’s check out what else went down in a fairly light night of NBA action:

I was waiting for the Orlando game to end for hours, then realized the final score was 78-61. 61 points? You may have been duped into thinking this was a women’s basketball score, and though I think Britney Griner could drop a double nickel on these flunkies, these were men on the hardwood, allegedly.

With Kyle Lowry and Andrea Bargnani out of the line-up due to injury concerns, Jose Calderon started for the Raptors and finished with a triple double (18 points, 10 rebounds, 14 assists), plus a block and a steal. Eventually, Lowry and Bargnani will come back and there will likely be no place left for Calderon besides the bench, but for me, Jose will always have some value.

Pau Gasol and the Lakers have had a train wreck of a season so far. Pau is seeing nearly all his numbers being below career average (12.6/8.9/3.5/0.5/1.2 with 42% FG and 76% FT) and having “knee tendinitis” to boot. As such, I had to move him down in the tiers because you can’t be a Victoria’s Secret model with those type of numbers.